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| Marijuana Supporters March Around Point Park |
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Posted by CN Staff on May 01, 2004 at 21:58:23 PT By Dave Payne Sr. Source: Parkersburg Sentinel 
Parkersburg -- About a dozen people marched in downtown Parkersburg Saturday carrying pro-medical-marijuana signs and chanting "The joy is not the point - it's the medicine." The round-trip march from Point Park to the federal building on Juliana Street was the culmination of the second annual Mountaineers for Medical Cannabis Rally at Point Park Saturday. Speakers at the event discussed the uses of medical marijuana and chastised politicians and pharmaceutical companies they believe are standing in the way of legalizing the treatment. About 20 people attended the rally, said Cindy Wimer, secretary of the organization. More than 50 attended last year, she said. "I think we were spoiled from last year. This year we had a problem getting the word out," Wimer said. The group supports legalizing marijuana for medical use and nothing else, she said. Supporters of medical marijuana say it is helpful for easing side effects of cancer chemotherapy and alleviating a variety of other illnesses. The substance is used in several countries for easing pain without the addictiveness of legal painkillers such as morphine and oxycontin, Wimer said. "We want to have a law in West Virginia to protect every patient that needs medical cannabis," she said. The Rev. Rob Randolph, of Fleming, Ohio, was among those attending. Randolph said he was ordained by the Guiding Light Tabernacle two years ago and has no regular congregation. "I preach at home. I preach in the street. Years ago God asked me to quit smoking (marijuana) when I got saved. I don't smoke it - I don't have a need for it - but some people do need what it contains," he said. Randolph said he does not condone recreational marijuana use, but does advocate for it to be legalized for medical purposes. "Overindulgence in anything is sinful, but God put beasts and plants on earth and saw that it was all good. It is all for our purpose, whether you eat it or drink it or whatever," Randolph said. Last year's inaugural rally was originally planned at Bicentennial Plaza, but was moved to Point Park because the family-oriented downtown Through the Looking Glass promotion was to be held nearby at the same time. Point Park is a good place for the rally and the organization plans to hold it there the first Saturday in May each year, Wimer said. Complete Title: Medical Marijuana Supporters March Around Point Park Source: Parkersburg Sentinel, The (WV) CannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archives Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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| Comment #8 posted by FoM on May 02, 2004 at 18:02:59 PT |
| I've been looking but haven't found but a few article and I put them on my Million Marijuana March Page. I will add more articles if I find some. Here's the link. This page is on the front page of CNews. I hope everyone had a good time. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #7 posted by FoM on May 02, 2004 at 13:42:35 PT |
| I understand. I am in my own little world today because of the torture of prisoners. I can't seem to stop thinking about it. When I saw that woman pointing at a prisoners genitals I flipped out. I respect men. I always have. That doesn't mean that I am a push over or not a strong willed woman but that really got to me that a woman would do that. [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #6 posted by kaptinemo on May 02, 2004 at 13:25:46 PT:
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| far. There was a time, decades ago, when a relatively peaceable political solution could have been arranged. A truce. A cease-fire. There was a time when pols could have, with the stroke of a pen, ended this dreadful overt/covert civil war on our own fellow Americans without incurring too much in the way of criticism. That time is long past...and the antis know this for true. They know it because they were the ones to escalate the War on Drug(User)s to the present state we know it as today. No such escalation was offered (nor was it possible!) by us. For, when the extremists among the DrugWarriors took over the daily operations with their inflammatory rhetoric and their equally provocative (and increasingly violent) actions, the direction of this un-civil civil war was charted for nothing less than all-out conflict. We can still stop this before we slide into fascism's cesspool, but the antis have been smelling the sulfurous stink from the Pit for so long, they are loopy from it and think the smell is normal. They think they are headed in the right direction, that America is 'special', that we can do what no other society in the history of Humankind has ever done: create a Drug-Free World. And some of these creatures have publicly stated that it's worth a few innocent's lives in order to accomplish this Grail Quest. (Care to offer up your own children's lives to shore up your convictions, DrugWarriors? Or is only the 'dark meat' that's supposed to do the dying for you?) It is my greatest fear that it will take a sort of Kent State event in which scores of peaceable cannabists are killed by police before an honest appraisal of the damage caused by the DrugWar and it's proponents is made; obviously, the police have had plenty of rehearsals (Rainbow Farm, Donald Scott, Ismael Mena, Esequiel Hernandez, Alberto Sepulveda, etc.) to be ready for a much bigger shot at 'stardom'. But given the actions of this government, I would not hold my breath... [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #5 posted by FoM on May 02, 2004 at 11:45:53 PT |
| We are in a thick of battle but we are winning. We just have to keep going forward. There is no turning back now. We've come to far. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #4 posted by afterburner on May 02, 2004 at 11:42:25 PT |
| Mahatma Gandhi quote: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." During the past year we have seen court victories and defeats, paraphernalia wars, new legislation about cannabis and free speech and freedom of assembly, medical boards censuring cannabis-friendly doctors, more LEO hysterics about grow-ops, targeting of peaceful cannabis protestors, photographing of peaceful cannabis protestors, arson in Vancouver's "pot block," even the attempt by the federal government in the Netherlands to classify high-THC cannabis as a "hard drug," and Andrea Barthwell's ominous talk of a "federal initiative" against non-addicted [read social/recreational adults who toke cannabis responsibly] cannabis "users." If some people were reluctant to expose their identities in the face of all this "fussin' and fightin'" or if they were just rained out, the battle still rages and WETHEPEOPLE will not be silenced. We are definitely in the thick of the fight, but as kaptinemo says, "No, the antis are not concerned about us mouthing off here; what our opponents *really* want is for us TO CENSOR OURSELVES OUT OF FEAR. Essentially, to do their work for them, by marginalizing our own selves. And so reduce the strain of engaging in the efforts they *would* have to initiate to 'get' us. "The louder we are, the *safer* we are. If we silence ourselves, we make it that much easier to 'disappear' us if it comes to that. For if we drop off the face of the 'Net by our own choice, we are eventually forgotten, even by our own. *That's* when you can expect the 'knock at midnight'." So, let us fight the fight of our lives because next comes victory. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #3 posted by FoM on May 02, 2004 at 10:52:50 PT |
| Rally Seeks Stop To Pot Prohibition Sunday, May 02, 2004 By Bob Wheaton FLINT -- Erich Schmitz takes his marijuana seriously. "I don't like using the word pot,' " said Schmitz, 21, of Mt. Morris. "To me, it sounds juvenile." Schmitz, who said he smokes marijuana "on occasion," and dozens of other supporters of legalizing marijuana attended the third annual Marijuana March held by the Flint National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. "Just like you can drink alcohol responsibly, you can smoke marijuana responsibly," Schmitz said. "I do believe marijuana is safer (than alcohol)." Snipped: Complete Article: http://www.mlive.com/news/fljournal/index.ssf?/base/news-21/1083498623214830.xml [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #2 posted by FoM on May 02, 2004 at 09:21:54 PT |
| I'm looking for news about the Marches and there really isn't much at all. I normally find pictures in a yahoo search but so far I haven't found any. Are the Marches not what they used to be I wonder? I know that fear of our government would make many people avoid gathering for a cause. I am appalled at the torture of Iraq prisoners. I can't find the words to say how sick it made me when I saw the pictures. This is what happens when a person is given power over another and locking up people who uses Cannabis puts them in harms way because jailers can get as mean as what happened to the poor prisoners in Iraq. I really fear for us as a society. We have become a vile nation of haters. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #1 posted by Virgil on May 02, 2004 at 09:08:25 PT |
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Parkersburg is a city of 33,000 and is the last city on I-77 before the Ohio river and Marietta, Ohio when heading north. The economy of West Virginia collapsed when the high sulfur coal fell from use in favor of the western states. The exodus of people from West Virginia has a mantra of sorts that says to go down I-77 to the junction of I-40 and spread. There are a lot of people here from WV and with what I know and what I think, I say that WV grows more laughing grass per capita than any state. The reason people stayed home is because everyone and their brother is for MMJ and everyone consumes or know someone that consumes. If I were to chose one town to vote for Free Cannabis For Everyone, it would be Parkersburg, WV. They might not turn out in force for something everyone supports, because they know that it is the corruption by The Man that is screwing them, just like the people of West by God Virginia have always been screwed. Parkersburg has a reputation of corruption that tells me not to stop there and I do not regard it as a nice place, much less a nice place to vistit. Parkersburg there in the beginning of the oil age with a thriving economy for over a century that has now passed. This is the link to the Oil and Gas Museum leads with these two paragraphs. http://little-mountain.com/oilandgasmuseum/ Both oil and natural gas were discovered in western Virginia by the first explorers in the mid-1700s. George Washington acquired 250 acres in what is now West Virginia because it contained an oil and gas spring. This was in 1771, making the father of our country the first petroleum industry speculator.A thriving commercial oil industry was in process as early as 1819 with the first major wells drilled at Petroleum, West Virginia, outside Parkersburg, early in 1859; California, West Virginia in the summer of 1859; and Burning Springs, West Virginia a year later in 1860. Natural gas was moved in wooden pipes from wells to be used as a manufacturing heat source by the Kanawha salt manufacturers as early as 1831. These events truly mark the beginnings of the oil and gas industry in the United States. [ Post Comment ] |
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